Re: Darwinian Mechanism of Mutation and Natural Selection Found Lacking

paratope.epitope@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

Is this Charlie Wagner, or is it someone plagiarizing Charlie Wagner?

It is constantly a source of wonder and amazement to me that highly
competent scientists, whom I otherwise hold in high regard, have not
come to these same conclusions. The conclusions are that life could
not have arisen de novo on a barren earth, and that all of the life
forms that we see today could not have appeared as a result of the
darwinian mechanism of mutation and natural selection.

The evidence for evolution is broken down into three broad
catagories.

The first is direct evidence of small-scale changes in controlled
laboratory experiments.

The second is direct evidence based upon sequences in the fossil
record.

The third is the vestigial argument, the idea that the signs of
history are preserved within every organism which record pathways of
historical descent.

You seem to have left out a number of broad categories. But let's stick
with these for now.

I have never denied for a moment that mutations occur, or that natural
selection occurs. What I'm saying is that it is a trivial effect, with
no creative power to produce new forms. Evolution correctly is defined
as a change in the frequency of genes in a population. The leap of
faith, which I refuse to take, is that these changes can accumulate to
the point where new species, genera and classes are formed. Artificial
selection experiments in laboratories have demonstrated that there is
a point beyond which you cannot go. Why should it be any different in
nature?

I missed those experiments. Where do I find them?

Let's start at the beginning. Could life have arisen de novo on the
primitive earth? I won't rule it out, but I consider it very unlikely
given what we know. It is becoming more clear as time goes on, that
the primitive atmosphere contained little, if any, ammonia, methane
and hydrogen. This puts all of the experiments of Fox and Miller in
question. A much more likely scenario, is that the primitive
atmosphere was rich in carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor. No
one to my knowledge, has proposed any believable mechanism that would
cause these perfectly stable molecules to combine together into RNA,
DNA, proteins, cells, tissues and organisms. You can't even get past
the first step. In addition, the oldest cells date back to around 3.45
billion years old. The earth probably only became habitable for life
at around 3.8 billion years ago. This leaves you with only 350 million
years for the processes of photosynthesis, replication, cell
respiration and all of the enzymes needed by these processes to
evolve. I just don't think that's enough time.

What do you think happened? It seems much more likely to me that life
came to earth from elsewhere, with all of these processes already in
place. I think the key to it all is the water. The earth appears t o
be the only planet in the solar system with large quantities of water,
which is necessary for life to flourish

There seems to be less evidence for your conjecture than for the
standard one. There are big problems with moving life around the
universe, chiefly radiation, vacuum, and time.

That's all well and good, but it only postpones the question.
Where did the space life come from?

Well, now you've come to the question of primary cause. Stated another
way, we may well ask "why is there anything, instead of nothing?" At
some point in time, you've got to get to something that has always
existed. Conventional thinking calls this something God. But it may
just as well be the universe as God, in my mind. We must consider the
possibility that the universe, and the life in it have always existed.
It may just be that the question "why is there life?" is no different
from the question "why is there matter?"

One problem here is that the universe has not always existed, so life
can't have always existed in it. There has to be a beginning, unless you
are positing that life can be transferred between universes and so
arrived here from somewhere else.

Getting back to evolution, scientists claim that there is a "mountain
of evidence" for evolution.
Do you deny this?

Well, I just don't see it. There is a "mountain of evidence" that all
living forms are related. Of that there can be no doubt. In fact, this
relatedness is profound. I think this is the evidence that they are
talking about. The similarities in genes found across the spectrum of
living things is astounding. The same genes are present in all kinds
of animals, and even in plants. There is a gene in the bean plant that
codes for hemoglobin, which is never used by a bean plant. Why is it
there?

Actually, it *is* used.

But this profound relatedness, does not mean that one organism
is ancestral or descendant to another.

As usual, it's impossible to determine what you actually mean by
"related". If it doesn't mean ancestry and descent, what does it mean?
What alternative phenomenon to ancestry and descent are you postulating
under the name "related"? Until we know, we can't determine if your
theory even makes sense, much less fits the data.

And furthermore, this
relatedness says nothing about the mechanism by which these forms
appeared, certainly it does not support the mechanism of mutation and
natural selection.

Agreed.

Doesn't the fossil record show that organisms have evolved from simple
forms to complex forms over time? How can you deny this?

Actually, it's not just the fossil record that shows this. That nested
hierarchy you mention above shows it too, at least if you accept it as
evidence for common descent. Again, we have to wonder what your
alternative theory actually is.

Even if the fossil record did show this, which it doesn't, this would
say nothing in support of the darwinian mechanism of mutation and
natural selection.

Sure it shows this, but you are right that it doesn't support
mutation/selection as the major cause.

The fact is, the fossil record falsifies the
darwinian mechanism. From the time of the first eukaryotic cells,
around 1.4 billion years ago, up to the Cambrian period which began
around 600 million years ago, life did not progress beyond the single-
cell stage.

Actually, that's not true. The Cambrian began 543 million years ago, and
there are Precambrian multicellular fossils, starting perhaps as long as
a billion years ago (though these are contentious) and definitely
present by 560 million years ago. These fossils gradually increase in
complexity and frequency as the Cambrian explosion (around 520 million
years ago) is approached.

This is 800 million years available, and no move towards
multicellularity. Then in a period of time which may have been as
short as 5 million years, all of the known animal phyla appear at
once.

This also is not true. You have been told this over and over. A few
known phyla are Precambrian or appear in the Cambrian but before that 5
million year period you're talking about. A few appear after the
Cambrian. A slight majority have no fossil record at all.

After that, no new animal phyla apppear for the next 500 million
years.

Again, not true.

This is not consistent with a darwinian view that evolution
occurs by the slow accumulation of beneficial mutations.

But this is the most important question. Why is it not consistent?

Another
profound observation is that there appears to have been little or no
evolution in the 40 million years between the Burgess fossils and the
Chengjiang fossils. Why?

Well, for one thing, you have your time frame seriously out of whack.
The Chengjiang came first, and the two are separated not by 40 million
years but by perhapd 10 million. They differ about as much as we might
expect in ten million years, which is not all that much, especially if
you're looking at little invertebrates that you, personally, find hard
to tell apart anyway.

Aren't there lots of transitional fossils to prove evolution?

There are transitional fossils and there are transitional fossils.
First of all, there is an almost complete absence of transitional
fossils between classes.

Except of course for all the transitional fossils between classes, such
as Ichthyostega, Archaeopteryx, Morganucodon, and such.

This is a very important distinction.

And a false one.

This
had been known by paleontologists for a long time and Gould and
Eldridge tried to neutralize the problem with their theory of
punctuated equilibrium.

No. You have probably never read Eldredge and Gould 1972, in which the
theory of PE was laid out. But in fact the perceived lack was the lack
of smooth transitional series between species in a single genus, like
the example they used in the paper, the trilobite genus Phacops. This
also has been explained to you many times before.

There are no intermediate forms between
invertebrates and vertebrates.

Except for all the intermediate forms, many of them living, like
amphioxus and tunicates.

There are no intermediate forms between
birds and reptiles.

Except for all the intermediate forms, all extinct, like Archaeopteryx,
Deinonychus, and such.

There are no intermediate forms between amphibians
and reptiles,

Except for all those anthracosaurs.

or between fish and amphibians.

Except for Panderichthys, Tiktaalik, Acanthostega, and so on.

These forms are not
still hidden in the fossil record.

That's certainly true.

They never existed.

But that isn't, since we know of many such forms, a few of which I have
just mentioned.

The hierarchy
of living organisms is profoundly discontinuous.

Now that's true, and the reasons are that extinction has taken away many
of the intermediates, and surviving forms have diverged along their
separate evolutionary paths.

Hardly what we would
expect if life evolved gradually by the slow accumulation of
beneficial mutations.

Why would you say that?

I've heard it said that humans did not evolve from gorillas, but
rather that gorillas and humans had a "common ancestor". What about
this?

All of these so-called "common ancestors" are hypothetical.

This must always be true, because we are incapable of recognizing
ancestors in the fossil record, even if we're looking at them. All we
can say is that there are fossils with many of the characteristics we
might expect in common ancestors.

Look at
the time lines in any textbook. The lines converge at the base, but
these lines of convergence are usually dotted lines. Why? Because the
convergences to a common ancestor are hypothetical. In my opinion,
they never existed.

Why should your opinion count for anything? You have presented no
argument, and never have.

What about this idea of historical evidence. Why does our body display
the vestiges of an arrangement better suited to quadrupedal life, if
we are not descended from four-footed creatures?

lets assume for a moment that we are descended from quadrupeds. What
does that say about mutation and natural selection? Nothing at all. We
may have changed from quadrupeds to bipeds by the addition of a small
chunk of DNA that was incorporated into our genome from a virus that
came from space.

Why is this less silly than the standard explanation? Regardless of what
you think of the standard explanation, it has evidence supporting it.
You have nothing. "Viruses from space?" What evidence do you have for
any such thing? How could a virus survive in space? How long would it
have to survive to get here from wherever it was coming from?

It's clear from fossils that bipedalism can arise gradually. We see
intermediate conditions in several living apes, that can walk bipedially
on occasion, and in extinct australopithecines, which differed slightly
from the modern condition. As far as I know, we don't yet know the
genetics of this transition, but when we do I predict that it won't be
explainable by any "virus from space", but by the sorts of mutations we
see happening all the time.

This argument only addresses the question of
relatedness, which is clear and profound. It says nothing whatsoever
about the mechanism by which these changes occurred.

Ah. So they are indeed changes. Here you seem to approach the standard
meaning of "relatedness". Which seems odd considering your rejection
earlier in this rant.

Nor does the
fossil record. The key to the whole question is, "where did the genes
come from?" Where did the instructions that produce these structures
and behaviors originate? I do not believe that they arose by chance as
a result of mutations.

Do you have any reasons for that belief? Would you consider articulating
them at some point? You are correct that the evidence for common descent
is not in itself evidence for a particular mechanism of evolution.
However, all the genetic evidence is compatible with the notion that the
same kinds of mutations we see happening all the time are responsible
for the differences between species. There is no sign of viruses from
space in any comparison of the entire human and chimp genomes. Yet if
your notions were true we would expect them. Wouldn't we?

I recently saw an advertisement in a magazine for a car. The caption
said "Mr. Darwin, your car is ready." The implication is that this was
an example of how the car evolved over time into its present state.
Aren't technological advances, such as have occurred in the aircraft
industry examples of evolution?

No.

The analogy between biological evolution by natural selection and
technological advances is a false analogy. I know that some people
have drawn an analogy between biological evolution and the evolution
of, say, an airplane or car.

Generally, those people are creationists. So why bring it up?

The analogy is false because at no point
in the development of the automobile or airplane was any element of
design achieved by chance. Only by the most strict application of the
rules of engineering and aerodynamics was the final result obtained.
There is no way that a random search could ever have discovered the
design of the internal combustion engine. In all cases, the search for
function is intelligently guided. Evolution by the method you propose
is analagous to problem solving without any intelligent guidance. In
the case of every kind of complex, functional system, the total
magnitude of all combinational possibilities is nearly infinite.
Meaningful islands of function are so rare, that to find even one
would be a miracle.

And yet it happens all the time. Perhaps the islands aren't so rare as
you imagine (for which there is in fact good evidence) and their slopes
reach farther out to sea than you suppose, giving natural selection some
purchase.

There has been much talk about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.

You say evolution violates this law. Evolutionists say that this law
only applies to a closed system, and that the earth is not a closed
system, it receives large amounts of energy from the Sun. How do you
answer this?

I hope evolutionists don't say that. You confuse equilibrium and
non-equilibrium thermodynamics here. The 2nd law applies to life as well
as anything. But life obeys the 2nd law. You are wrong when you claim
that evolution violates that law.

First of all, there is no such thing as a closed system anywhere in
the universe. The only closed system is the universe itself, as far as
we know. Secondly, the earth radiates back into space an amount of
energy equal to that which it receives from the sun, minus that which
is stored in the process of photosynthesis. The question is, can this
energy from the sun cause molecules of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and
water to aggregate into amino acids and proteins? I don't think so.
The only effect it would have, as far as I can see, is to make the
earth warm. If anything, it would create more disorder by increasing
the average kinetic energy of the molecules. No one to my knowledge,
has proposed a plausible mechanism by which order comes from disorder
under these conditions.

Your knowledge doesn't go very far. In fact simple heating can produce
all manner of ordered phenomena. Hurricanes are a good example.

It seems logical to me that small improvements might accumulate
gradually over time to produce new adaptations. Why don't you see
this?

The biological world is filled with numerous examples of processes and
structures that do not work unless they are complete.

Ah, IC. I'm afraid not. All the examples you give have been debunked
quite nicely. Partial versions of all of them occur in current organisms.

Examples would
include the flagellum of a bacterium, the biochemistry of vision, the
blood clotting system, the cilium, the immune system and the cellular
transport system. Many biochemical pathways in the body are "cascade"
reactions in which a series of intermediate steps leads to the final
result. How can these processes and structures be found by natural
selection? They would have no selective value at their intermediate
stages of development. In fact, they might even prove fatal to the
organism. How many random mutations would have to occur before all of
the correct steps are in place? 50% of an eye might not be 50% of
vision, if the missing part was the optic nerve. It would be 0% of
vision.

Which suggests that eyes do not evolve in such a silly way as having an
eyeball pop into existence without an optic nerve. But nobody suggests
any such thing. There are excellent living intermediates for eye
evolution, and recognition of this goes gack to Darwin at least.

How do evolutionists view the appearance of new adaptations?

According to evolutionary theory, every adaptive advance discovered
during the course of evolution, along every phylogenetic line has been
found by a gigantic lottery by using a purely random search strategy.
This has been shown by mathematicians to be a hopelessly inefficient
process.

I missed that particular demonstration. Tell me more. I wouldn't call
natural selection a random search strategy, though.

But hasn't Richard Dawkins proposed something called "cumulative
selection" to get around this problem?

There is a fatal flaw in Dawkins example. For cumulative selection to
work, there must be selective advantage at every step in the process
or, the outcome must be known in advance. Otherwise, how can the
"worth" of each small change be judged so that the beneficial
mutations can be kept? We saw previously that many processes and
structures are irreducibly complex so they have no worth at
intermediate steps of evolution.

We agree that in order for natural selection to produce a complex
structure, each change must have selective value at the time. But we
don't agree that you have shown any processes or structures that can't
have evolved in such a way. Handwaving is not evidence.

My name has 13 letters and one space.
How long would it take to find it by selecting random combinations of
13 letters and one space? The only way to be successful is if the
target string is known in advance. If the outcome is known in advance,
then we have intelligent design.

You mistake what Dawkins' "weasel" analogy was for. And your name is not
the target of evolution. If your name had a function, any other name
that served that function would do as well. So the target is not so
limited as you might imagine.

Do you think that living organisms show evidence of intelligent
design?
Considering the ingenuity with which living organisms are assembled,
and the deepening layers of complexity that are found therein, I
cannot ascribe it to any random process that is driven by chance. I do
see evidence for intelligent design.

If the choice is between chance and intelligent design, so do I. But
this is a false choice. Evolution by mutation and selection is not
chance. It has a chance component (the mutations) and a non-chance
component (selection). I know strawmen are easier to attack than real
positions; that's why they're tempting. But once you've attacked a
strawman, what do you have? Nothing.

If the observational and experimental evidence doesn't support
darwinian evolution, why does it persist as a theory?

If.

The main
reason, I think, is that science can offer no alternative. People
expect scientists to have answers. Scientists don't like to say "I
don't know". This would create an information vacuum that would
quickly be filled by religious creationists who believe that God
created the universe and all of the life in it. Another reason, is
that there are a whole generation of evolutionary biologists who have
grown up with this theory, believed in it, promoted it and defended
it. How would it be for them, at the twilight of their careers to have
to admit that their life's work was incorrect? It is also clear that
Darwinism is on the road to becoming an established religious belief
with Darwin as the diety. There are new groups of "ultra-darwinists"
who seek to explain everything in the world including psychology, in
terms of darwinism.

This isn't rocketscience.

It's not even science.

http://www.charliewagner


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